2& BRITISH BUTTERFLIES. 



not designed as substitutes for the text, but to elucidate 

 and strengthen the ideas in the reader's mind. 



While the poet draws from the butterfly many a 

 pleasant similitude, and the moralist many a solemn 

 teaching, the artist (who should be poet and moralist 

 too) dwells upon these beings with fondest delight, find- 

 ing in them images of joy and life when seen at large 

 in the landscape, and rich stores of colour-lessons when 

 studied at home in the cabinet. 



The owners of many a name great in the arts have 

 been enthusiastic collectors of butterflies. Our distin- 

 guished countryman, Thomas Stothard, was one of their 

 devotees, and the following anecdote, extracted from his 

 published life, shows how he was led to make them 

 his special study : 



" He was beginning to paint the figure of a reclining 

 sylph, when a difficulty arose in his own mind how 

 best to represent such a being of fancy. A friend who 

 was present said, l Give the sylph a butterfly's wing, 

 and then you have it.' i That I will,' exclaimed 

 Stothard ; ' and to be correct I will paint the wing 

 from the butterfly itself.' He sallied forth, extended 

 his walk to the fields, some miles distant, and caught 

 one of those beautiful insects ; it was of the species 

 called the Peacock. Our artist brought it carefully 

 home, and commenced sketching it, but not in the 

 painting room ; and leaving it on the table, a servant 

 swept the pretty little creature away, before its portrait 

 was finished. On learning his loss, away went Stothard 

 once more to the fields to seek another butterfly. But 

 at this time one of the tortoise-shell tribe crossed his 

 path, and was secured. He was astonished at the com- 

 bination of colour that presented itself to him in this 

 small but exquisite work of the Creator, and from that 

 moment determined to enter on a new and difficult 

 field the study of the . insect department of Natural 

 History. He became a hunter of butterflies. The 

 more he caught, the greater beauty did he trace in their 

 infinite variety, and he would often say that no one 



